Man Booker Prize Shortlist

The judges praised the variety of writing styles and cultural diversity of the authors which includes new authors alongside established names.

The shortlisted authors each receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book. The winner will receive a further £50,000 and can expect international recognition. The 2015 winner will be announced on Tuesday 13 October.

Here is a run down of the authors and books:

Marlon James

Booker Prize shortlisted book: A brief history of Killing

What is the book about: The violent story of Jamaica in the 1970’s and 80’s. There’s a good plot synopsis in the telegraph here:

The Guardian says “If one were to be curmudgeonly, one might say that A Brief History is slightly more impressive for its ambition than its accomplishment.”

About the Author: Marlon James, 44, was born in Jamaica, he now lives in Minneapolis. He is the first Jamaican born author to the shortlisted for the prize

Previous books: John Crow’s Devil and The Book of Night Women.

Tom McCarthy

Booker Prize shortlisted book: Satin Island

What is the book about: U, a ‘corporate anthropologist’ working in London tries to unlock the meaning of the contemporary world.

The Telegraph says “Reading Tom McCarthy’s fiction induces a certain kind of mania. It demands to be unpacked and decoded, charted and mapped. Every chapter – no, every sentence – invites you to plunge deeper into the book’s dark pool, groping for the submerged pattern.”

About the Author: Tom McCarthy,46, is a prolific author. He grew up and currently lives in London. He is the only shortlisted author to have been nominated before, having been shortlisted for C in 2010.

Previous books include: Remainder, Men in Space, C.

Chigozie Obioma

Booker Prize shortlisted book: The Fishermen

What is the book about: Set in mid 90’s NIgeria, nine year old Benjamin tells a story of family, phrophesy and tragedy.

The Guardian says “It is the detailed, painstakingly built images and descriptions that give the novel its unique power.

About the Author: Chigozie Obioma, 28, is from Nigeria and currently lives in the USA. He is the youngest of this years shortiste authors.

Previous books: The Fishermen is Obiama’s first Novel.

Sunjeev Sahota

Booker Prize shortlisted book: The Year of the Runaways

What is the book about: The story of three young men and a woman who have moved to sheffield in the UK from India in search of a better life.

The Independent says “An ideal antidote to a year of reductive discussions of immigration,”

About the Author: Sunjeev Sahota, 34, was born in Derbyshire and lives in Sheffield. He is a Granta Best of British Novelist 2013

Previous books: Ours are the streets.

Anne Tyler

Booker Prize shortlisted book: A Spool of Blue Thread

What is the book about: Family life for several generations of the Whitshank family

The Observer says “Anne Tyler reels in the reader with an absorbing domestic saga in a homely minor key”

About the Author: Another prolific author whose previous books have been shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and the Orange Prize for fiction, Anne Tyler, 73, was born in Minneapolis and now lives in Balitimore.